Migraines
They're as bad as ever. I had a migraine each day running up to Thanksgiving and a horrendously bad one that ruined Thanksgiving for me. I sent my doc a letter letting him know that there was no improvement with the Ajovy, but I know he wanted at least three full months and that was after the third month's shot.
I'm starting to wonder... are people around me (Mom, R, B...) starting to assume I'm getting better? I'll admit, I'm doing more while experiencing migraines. I still get the confusion/mind-fog, but as I'm not exactly making important decisions, I can just let that go. I'm still in pain and still wince with the light and certain sounds, but I'm not crawling around and cradling my head. Do they see that as getting better? Because I am absolutely NOT getting better.
Other Health
I've Plantar Fasciitis a couple times. If you've never had it, it's the inflammation of the lower area of the foot (an area call the plantar fascia) that most people experience in their heel or just in front of their heel. Most of the time, people get it from over exertion but it can come from just about any activity. Most of the time, people get it in one foot or the other, but it can occur in both at the same time. I've had it before in one foot at a time, but this was the first time I got it in both feet. And Fucking OW!!
I read up on it as I'd never gone to the doctor about it. Mostly, you take some anti-inflammatories, rest, and maybe do some stretches and it'll be good in less than a week. To help prevent it, you also make sure to have good foot support, especially in the arches. I think that last part is where I had a problem. I normally work eight hours a day and am wearing my shoes ten to twelve hours a day. Now, without working? Yeah, I might not put my shoes on for three or four days at a go. And I don't wear slippers. I slink around the house wearing just socks.
To help myself with this bout, and to help prevent further episodes, I went to buy the best pair of slippers for foot pain and specifically planta fasciitis. From several list of slippers that help in these areas, there was a particular pair of Ugg slippers they recommended. I never thought I'd buy a pair of slippers that were more expensive than my shoes, but as I'd likely be wearing them almost all the time, I figured why cheap out. So, I ordered them through Amazon but with the holiday season upon us, they wouldn't be delivered for several days. Not wanting to wait, I also went to the local store and bought a nice, relatively cheap, pair of slippers.
In short, they worked. The plantar fasciitis was all but gone by the time the Uggs arrived. I was still happy to see the Uggs and I have to say, they were built wonderfully. Great material with a really REALLY soft lining. And I couldn't even get my foot in them. I don't mean that they were tight, I mean that my foot did not fit through the opening.
My first thought was to return them and buy another set in a few sizes bigger. I wear a 10.5 shoe (men's sizing) and had bought these in a 10 as I'd rather have them stretch to my size rather than stretch and become loose. I figure maybe a 12 would work? But then I also started thinking that the 'shoe' style slipper might not be the best.
So, I'll return the Uggs, but I decided on another pair. Again, these were specifically recommended because of their good arch support and reduction in foot pain. They're like a mix of the above slippers with a minimal back but good (better) support. This time, however, I read the review and saw that they fit small so I bought them in size 12. They should be here tomorrow.
Finances
It's the holiday season, so I'm overspending as much as I normally do. Buying smart plugs so mom can turn the holiday lights on by saying "Hey Google, turn on Christmas". Buying gifts for the niece and nephews. Buying a new egg drawer for the fridge as we have a TON of eggs for mom's Christmas cookies. Stuff like that. Or as my brother R put it, I'm "buying everything on the fucking internet". I mention the over spending because even with it, I haven't had to dip into the extra that I withdrew from my 401k.
After paying off everything, I ended up with about $6,500 'extra'. I just bought my winter tires (more on those below) and that will be another $2,200, leaving me with $4,300 sitting around gathering dust. I'm going to go into the mode I was in before, where I keep $1,000 in my checking account for every day spending. When I process my bills (now twice a month instead of every other week), anything over $1,000 will get transferred into my savings. That way, if I make any bigger purchases (I'm honestly thinking about a new couch), I can just transfer the money from there and not leave it on a credit card.
My Long Term Disability (LTD) was approved through 11/30/2023. The paperwork said if I needed an extension I needed to get them updated paperwork submitted before 12/13/2023. It's actually the same paperwork my neurologist had to submit before. As I've had no improvement on the Ajovy, I sent the paperwork to my neurologist with the request he fill it out again and send it in. I then called the LTD company, informed them I was having my doctor send in updated paperwork and seeing if there was anything else I needed to do. They told me that no, there was nothing else. Once they received the paperwork, they'd reach out to me.
On 11/30/2023 I received a txt from the LTD company reminding me that my approval was running out and asking if I needed an extension. If I did, I could respond with "Yes" and they'd contact me. I immediately responded with the requested "Yes" and.... nothing. Now, maybe they got the paperwork from the doc and are working on the extension right now. Maybe the 'yes' is working its way through their system and they'll contact me today. But I get the feeling that they don't care and would rather me burst through any arbitrary timeline they have set so that they can deny paying me any longer. They are an insurance company after all and all insurance companies have the same philosophy... take in as much money as possible, pay out as little money as possible.
If I don't hear from them today, I'll contact them tomorrow morning.
And I finally heard back from the state regarding the disability benefits. I was denied. Not because of the ten years thing, but because they received my application a couple days after my last day working.
Here's how this time line worked out. I, and my neurologist, decided that medical retirement was the best option on August 31st. I couldn't get an answer from HR on how to apply for disability benefits and finally found it online that evening. I sent in a request for more information and they replied the next morning saying that they sent an application to me, but I'd have to get it back to them before I stopped working for the state. I got the thirty eight page application (38 FUCKING PAGES!) on September 11th. I filled it out that evening and put it in the mail. I also scanned and emailed the employee portion to my HR rep and requested she get that in the mail as soon as possible. Both my and HRs copies should have been in the mail on the 12th. My last day working was the 13th, making my last day with the state (the end of that pay period) the 16th.
They received the application on the 18th.
There was no option of returning the paperwork in a faster method. No fax, no email. They're also considering my last day as the last day I worked, instead of the last day of my employment. I sent another message in, laying out the timeline above and asking if I had any recourse. They replied that I could only appeal if I'd applied before my last day. I immediately responded, saying that they have my application that was signed on the 11th and mailed on the 12th. Both BEFORE my last day of the 13th.
Every response I've gotten from them has taken a few hours at most. This response took three days. They said I applied on the 18th, and since my last day was the 13th, I was denied.
I'll be going through their paperwork with a fine tooth comb when I don't have a migraine to see exactly what options I have. If I don't find any, I might seek legal counsel. This isn't an inexpensive thing as it covers my insurance. Sure, it covers some cash too, but it's not all that much money and any money I receive from the state just gets taken out of my LTD, meaning the money is a wash. But the insurance alone would be about $700 a month if I have to pay for it out of pocket. And that's COBRA insurance. Once I run out of COBRA I'll have to get insurance through the marketplace which means paying more for less insurance.
Family/Friends
Mom fell down again. She was getting up from a chair and put her hand on the coat covering the back of the chair. The coat slipped, she slipped, and ended up on the floor. Not bad, she just bruised her leg and arm, but it was a scary moment.
I've been actively trying to keep Mom's workload down. At the same time, I try to be supportive of what she wants to do. Thanksgiving was the crossroads of this. I wanted us to do what we did last year. Order a Thanksgiving meal from Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans and have it delivered. Not the 'deliver it and eat' type meals but the deliver it a few days before then the morning of Thanksgiving pull it all out and bake it with the included instructions type meal. It's not nearly as tasty as what Mom makes, but it's easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Mom, instead, wanted to have a 'small' thanksgiving. A turkey breast, mashed potatoes, dressing, corn casserole, twenty four hour salad, cranberry sauce, a chocolate pie, and a pumpkin pie. The "turkey breast" she got was a regular turkey with the thighs, legs, and wings cut off. It still had the whole front and back of the bird. Overall this meal took three days to prepare and completely wore Mom out on Thanksgiving. She almost fell out twice while making the meal. And as I said above, I was out when it came to helping as my migraine struck and I was done.
When I say it was a bad migraine, I mean it was bad enough that I remember helping prep the meal and finally sitting down to eat. I remember eating some of it... and then waking up many hours later. Evidently as soon as the meal was done I got up, cleared the table, washed the dishes, and then went into my room and climbed right into bed.
So we're doing Christmas a bit different. My brother B, his wife, and his kids are all going to come over for Christmas Eve. Mom will make her cheesy potato soup that everybody adores (and I approve of as it's fairly easy to make and requires very little prep), while B's fam will bring stuff for sandwhichs and chips and stuff. BUT... Mom is already adding things to the list. She's agreed to buy a veggie tray and a cheese tray, but she's now commited herself to making her spinach and crab dips.
I swear, I don't get my family. We're all on the same page that Mom should take it easy. But then we just 'have' to have certain things. Yes, I LOVE Mom's crab dip and could make a meal out of it myself (in fact, I've done that before!). But it is a royal pain in the as to make and requires a lot of manual laber including chopping up a bunch of onions, black olives, and celery and of course the fake crab (it honestly tastes better than real crab in addition to being about 1/10th the price), then mixing those into cream cheese. You ever try to mix stuff into cream cheese? It isn't easy. The spinach dip isn't any easier. I'd rather her not make either. Yeah, I want the dips, but I don't want Mom to work hard.
Even my older brother R, who lives with us and sees Mom struggle every day insists on the foods he loves, no matter the level of difficulty for mom. For instance, she said she was going to skip her chocolate pie as it's pretty hard and involves standing over a hot pot of chocolate pie pudding and stirring it for like twenty minutes. Then you have to push it all through a sift (sp?). Mom can't stand for five minutes, let alone stand at a hot oven for twenty while stirring a thick viscous pie filling. BUT, R just had to have it.
Fuck them.
Entertainment
I have been all over the map when it comes to entertainment. I'm almost done watching the Orville series, but moved on to watching Suits which I've never watched before. Then when I'm almost done with the first season of Suits, I get a burr up my ass and start re-watching Game of Thrones.
New Tech
Tires and headsets. When I got new tires this summer, I needed to get a tire NOW as it wasn't safe to drive to work and the spare is so much smaller than the rest that I didn't feel it was safe either (they recomend only using that for 50 miles and I work(ed) 50 miles from home. So, they had a Pirelli Sport summer tire in stock and could order me three matching ones to have later that week. Sounded good and got me on the road. The only problem was that it was a true summer tire. Even on Nina, I've only ever had all season tires or true winter tires. But at the time, I was working and could easily afford buying winter tires when the temps went down.
Well, now that I'm not working, I thought I might just drive with these tires all year. It's not like I drive all that much now. I think I've put on thirty miles in three weeks. But during those three weeks, we've had our first snow and the temps have fallen into the 30s. And let me tell you, summer tires do NOT work when its this cold and especially do NOT work in the slush/snow. I've never felt more in danger while driving on dry pavement. I can't even imagine what these would be like through a few inches of snow let alone like nine inches.
So, I had to buy winter tires. In years previous I'd look at buying wheels so that I could get smaller/cheaper tires. But I guess these sizes are getting more common. When I had Fiona, I think she had 17 inch wheels (maybe 18). Moving down to 16 inch wheels (maybe 17) and putting appropriate winter tires on saved me hundreds of dollars. Nina had 19 inch wheels. Moving down to 18s and the appropriate winter tires saved me almost $600. The thing that sucked with Nina is that I LOVED the look of her 19 inch wheels and really didn't care for the smaller 18s.
Well, Tiffany has 21 inch wheels that I love. I looked at the price of reducing them to equivalent 18, 19, and even 20 inch wheels and adding winter rubber, then compared it to adding just the 21 inch winter rubber that's available. And you know what? It would have cost me MORE to change the wheels. So for the first time since I've been doing winter tires, I'm putting them on my regular wheels. I got them online at Discount Tire, scheduled in install date (earlier today) and had them put on. The drive home is short, but I felt a difference already. Now I just need to pay for the winter tires.
The headset is frustrating. Years ago I got my Steelseries Pro Wireless headset. It came with a little DAC, plugged into the USB of the computer, and even has a digital optical in that the TV can use. It works brilliantly as i don't have to change any settings on the headset to listen to the TV or the computer. I just set the output on either the computer or the TV to the headset, and it comes through crystal clear. They're not quite as loud as I'd like, but they are very clear. But even with all that, I didn't choose them for that reason. I picked this headset because they're wireless and have removable batteries. When the battery is about to run out, it gives you a quick beep. You pause what you're doing (game or tv or movie), flip off the right ear cover, pull the battery out, pull the battery out of its charger (built into the DAC), put the empty battery in the DAC/charger, put the full one in the headset, and turn it back on. No 'charging' ever needed at the headset. No cables at the headset.
I don't ever really count the 'hours' of battery life. I know in normal use, I'd only have to switch the batteries once every few weeks. With me not working, that's gone up to maybe a couple times a week. But in the last few weeks, it seems that one of the batteries is dying far faster than the other. I mean like, I'd switch to this suspicious battery and in less than an hour, it'd be dead. That didn't even give the other battery time to charge. So, I bought another battery.
Once the other battery arrived, I pulled the 'bad' battery out of the rotation and went about my business. But then it happened again. I thought I might have two bad batteries, but when I pulled it out I saw that the short response was on the 'new' battery. I double checked the DAC/charger and it said the battery in it was fully charged, so I slipped it in and went about my business thinking I'd have to address this later (I was in the middle of a Game of Thrones episode). But then before the episode was done, it died. Looking at the DAC/charger, it said the other battery was fully charged. I even slipped the 'bad' battery in... fully charged.
Something is wrong with the headset.
A quick check shows me that Steelseries is still the only company making a headset like this with swappable batteries. And technically they don't make this headset any longer. Last year they replaced it with the Steelseries Nova Pro Wireless. They're great and improved in several ways... but they dropped the digital optical connection. So I could use them for the computer, but not the TV.
I've done some preliminary research and I don't think there is an obvious choice here.
I might end up with a similar replacement that the TV can plug into, can digitally attach to the computer, but has to charge on its docking station. They generally have a life of about 15 hours and I honestly can't imagine a time when I'd be wearing the headset for 15 hours straight... but it could happen. And the batteries will degrade over time, so will it last eight hours three years from now?
I might also end up with two headsets. There is a serious lack of headsets that can digitally (USB) attach to a computer AND has a digital optical in AND has a built in microphone. A wireless headset with an optical in? Easy. A wireless headset with a mic and USB? Easy. I think I can even find both that would charge through a USB C cable so I could just plug it in with the USB C cable I have laying on my desktop for just such an occasion (it's used to charge my mouse, my phone, my tablet, my chromebook, my kindle...).
I need to do more research, but I'm leaning toward the two headset option. I think the cheapest all in one optical/usb/mic headset I found was $300. I can get two headsets that will meet my needs for under $200. The biggest problem is moving from the computer to the TV. For example, yesterday was a bad migraine day. I just wanted to put some TV on and listen to it more than watch it. So I threw on Game of Thrones through Google Chrome browser, put my headset on, and went to listening. As my migraine cooled, I was able to watch more and more. And the more I watched, the more I remembered that streaming through a web browser limits most streams to like 720p. When it's blown up to the full screen 4k size it looks like shit. Especially the dark areas, and you know that Game of Thrones love their dark scenes.
So, I closed that window, flipped the TV to the other input (my Nvidia Shield streamer), turned the TV to the optical out sound option, and got to streaming. I didn't even have to take the headset off. If I have two sets, I'd have to turn the headset off, set it up to charge, turn the other headset on, and put it on. Not a HUGE deal... but that situation comes up more than you'd think.
Anyway, don't be surprised if I make a post about my new headsets soon.
Writing
I have to tell ya, writing Gamer Gurl is wonderful. I'm targeting 2500 words per chapter just so that they all feel about the same size. For awhile there, before Thanksgiving, I was getting out one or two or even three chapters a day. Since then, the migraines have really taken a toll and I've slowed way down. But I'm so looking forward to continuing it.
Story wise, I published the chapter with 'Sadie' the heroine getting her feminine body. I used a fat grafting method that's based on reality but fictionalized to give her more curves than is really possible. I also added in the last bit that her voice was changed and she's now stuck with a girls voice. All of it is reversable... but except for her penis, which is caged, she has the complete appearance of a girl.
The next chapter is going to be her trainer. I hinted at it several chapters earlier that the trainer would be in their home as they'd have to know Sadie was a guy. I played the pronoun game so it's assumed the trainer would be a woman, but the trainer (I'm blanking on the name I used right now, but it's a gender neutral name) is a big tall black man. Sadie of course is going to almost lose it, not wanting a man to be that close to her and helping her train and work out three days a week. When he senses that she's upset he's going to assume it's because he's black and say that if she has a problem, he can leave and just not come back. But if he comes in and they start, she'd better not have a problem with him. Not wanting to offend someone on the basis of race, Sadie will relent, figuring that Sarah set this up and knows about it.
Sarah doesn't know that the trainer is a man. She's going to see Sarah getting trained in a VERY hands on way by this big sexy man and believe that Sadie likes being seen as a woman by men.
That's all the next chapter.
I'll have a chapters about her first stream, getting a bigger audience, playing 'sexy' with the audience as it increased both the audience size and their tips, getting into a routine, maybe going to a Halloween party dressed up and meeting a guy (maybe the trainer!?), and then we get into the truly sexy stuff.
I've had in the back of my head a split in the story. One, where its more relationship based. Relationships between Sadie and Sarah, Sadie and her trainer, Sadie and her audience, Sadie and another woman, man, or similar man dressed as a woman. Her 'job' as a streamer wouldn't really change. The other side of the story would be Sadie realizing she's not making nearly enough money and Sarah introducing her to 'Step 2'. Becoming a cam girl. I mean cam girl being everything from just sitting and chatting sexily to her audience to undressing and showing off her body, to playing with sex toys, to having dual cap sessions with her and Sarah, to having actual sex with men. I have two scenes in my head down this path... a scene where she's giving a blowjob while wearing her panties, still keeping up the appearance of being a girl, and one where she's actually lying face down on the bed without her panties while the man has sex with her 'prone bone' style. In the first scene she doesn't have much choice on how she's used as she could slip and let her hidden penis out. In the second scene she wouldn't have any choice as any movement would show off her hidden goods.
I even have an animated gif that inspired that second situation:
We'll see where it goes. I need to get Sadie into streaming regularly before I even consider a split as both stories rely on that fact.
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